The opioid epidemic has had devastating impacts in recent years, affecting the lives of those battling addiction as well as their family, friends, and colleagues. Children, too, are deeply affected; they may be separated from parents with substance abuse disorders if their caretaker becomes incarcerated, needs to enter a rehabilitation program, or becomes unable to care for them. First-hand accounts and interviews collected by non-profit groups and the media suggest that nearby family members typically…

Father’s Day will be celebrated on Sunday, June 16, 2019. We’ve compiled some key stats about parenting and fatherhood in North Carolina. A record number of households in North Carolina are headed by single dads. There were 98,434 single father households in NC in 2017, an increase of more than 7,000 since 2016 and the highest number observed since 1960, when just 7,769 households with children were headed by single fathers. Single father households represented…

Demographic changes in the composition of North Carolina’s child population will likely introduce new challenges to reaching any goal of increasing statewide educational attainment. In Fall 2017, 44 percent or 674,000 North Carolina public school enrollments were black, Hispanic, or American Indian students. Over the past 5 years, this group of students has grown twice as fast as the overall student population and is projected to continue to grow steadily for the next 5-10 years. Compared to the state average, North Carolina’s American Indian, black, and Hispanic students are: Less likely to report plans to continue their education after high school.Eighty-four percent of North Carolina public high school graduates reported plans to continue their education at either a four-year, two-year, or trade school in 2015. While most Hispanic (77%), American Indian (80%), and black (81%) students also report postsecondary plans, they are more likely than their white and Asian peers to report plans to enlist in the military or start employment instead.

Once every 10 years, we count all individuals living in the United States in the census. In 2010, respondents were asked ten questions about basic characteristics, such as age, sex, race, and homeownership status. Last week, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced that census respondents will answer one additional question in 2020: citizenship status. Introducing an additional, untested question so late in the census life cycle is concerning to demographers and social scientists, like me, who rely on the census as a key source of information about how and why our population is changing.

The U.S. Census Bureau's July 1, 2015, population estimates revealed significant differences in population growth by age group, highlighting major impacts of population aging since 2010. There were also differences in state-by-state population growth. For example, more than half of states reported fewer working-age adults and fewer children in 2015 than in 2010. At the same time, every state saw large increases in the size of their 65+ populations. This post highlights some of the major age…

The oldest Baby Boomers began turning 65 on January 1, 2011. Every day since then, about 10,000 Baby Boomers have turned 65. This will continue through the end of 2029. Less than five years into this process, U.S. Census Bureau population estimates for July 1, 2015 already reveal significant impacts of the Boomer’s population aging. In 2010, just under 13% of North Carolina’s population was 65 or older. Five years later, in 2015, this proportion…

This is an update of the 2013 data discussed in this post. The interactive map below shows data from the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness (NCCEH) January 2014 Point-in-Time (PIT) count data. The PIT count is a statewide, unduplicated count of homeless people that is held on one night during the last week of January each year. These individuals are literally homeless, meaning that, on the night of the count, they are either living in an…

Between 2000 and 2010, North Carolina’s child population (ages 0 to 17) increased by almost 318,000 individuals. Unlike growth in the 65 and older population—which grew by more than 265,000 individuals and increased almost everywhere statewide—growth in the child population was uneven across the state. The child population shrank in 30 rural counties. The largest losses were in the eastern counties of Halifax (-2,387), Edgecombe (-1,188), and Martin (-1,098) and the western counties of Cleveland…

Between 2006 and 2011, growth in the U.S. population of children ages 0 to 17 was entirely due to growth in the number of children born to at least one immigrant parent. Over these 5 years, the population of children of immigrants grew 1.5 million, from 15.7 to 17.2 million. Nationally, the population of children of native-born parents fell slightly over this time period, from 55.6 to 55.0 million. In North Carolina, these trends are…